How well I remember the cranberry dish. It was a part of our household when I was a child. Then, as now, it was used only at THANKSGIVING & CHRISTMAS.

There was a turkey platter and a tall hand blown glass pitcher, and a big white china sugar bowl.

I don't recall if the platter had a colored picture on it or if it was only embossed, or both. I know that Helen had that and it was used sparingly. I wonder if Carol Baker has it? (She does!)

Della got the cranberry dish and I fell heir to the glass pitcher. Char wonders if we received things in the order of when we wed, which left her to the last. John was given Dad's rifle which I have today.

As I recall, these dishes came down from our Mom's mother (Hellen Wilson Chatfield) and I think the pitcher from one generation before that. I gave Duane the pitcher several years ago when I distributed most of my fancy dishes for very special Christmas gifts. He in turn will pass it on to one of the sons of HIS choice.

I haven't seen the sugar bowl for more than 50 years and Char doesn't know where it is either. It was hers. Seems to me she got the short end of the stick. I also got the black walnut dressers that came down through several generations of the family. Not fair, I guess.

We had to be ten years old before we could handle the cranberry dish, the tall glass pitcher or the turkey platter, and then under watchful eyes of everyone over ten years old! Sometimes it's hard to know who to pass certain things on to when a number of people are involved and I wondered if - Mom got the things she did, my grandmother must have had quite a collection. We do accumulate over the years.

Yes, that is a neat old rifle. It was made in 1898, just in time to be classified as an antique. Back when I started hunting it was my rifle, and it was nearly as tall as I was (and heavy, too). I got my first deer with it in 1959 and several others over the years. Once in a while it would misfire which cost me a deer or two. Years later I took it apart and found that the firing pin was broken. The local gunsmith had a new one which seemed to fix it. I think some of the misfires can be attributed to Uncle Elmer's reloads, too. He wasn't the most careful reloader. On one hunt in eastern Oregon Dad had one of Elmer's reloads in his rifle while he was drawing a bead on an elk. There was a click instead of a bang and the elk was gone before Dad could chamber another round. That was the only elk he saw all week.

That was a fun day taking Hilma and Curt to the range so she could shoot the rifle. We also went to Deception Pass and to a beach, but I think the shooting was the highlight of the day.